


Milkshakes

by AutumnisPrime92



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mothman, Mothman Q&A, Storytelling, The cutest shit I will ever write, demon shane, relationship building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 01:36:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14438679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnisPrime92/pseuds/AutumnisPrime92
Summary: West Virginia makes Ryan reflect on how they got there.





	Milkshakes

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Mothman Q&A, I had to write this and get it out of my system. I wrote my guilty pleasure basically. Enjoy!

West Virginia had a calm beauty about it. The Appalachian mountain range had a tendency to touch every state it ran through with its natural grace and Ryan couldn’t complain during the long drive to Point Pleasant. Looking out the window, he watched tall trees pass by in a blur along with the ancient river terraces cut out by a long abandoned ocean that once covered this part of North America. The sedimentary bedding created lovely layers that gave a particular “mystique” look to the rest of the forest with the overlaying fog. Light wisps beat against the windshield and snaked across the roadway. 

Ryan had always been a frightened child, a truth he never thought he’d confess in front of his co-host to a self-proclaimed voodoo queen. Parts of that had transferred into his everyday adult life. He was easily spooked by things that went bump in the night, things that, in his opinion, unnaturally slithered, and the occasional spider in the corner of his bathroom. Ryan was an adult now and didn’t have anyone else to rely on to put his mind to ease, so he did it himself. He shakily investigated dark rooms with flashlights to suade his imagination, stayed away from snakes, and used paper towels to smother those spiders. But the supernatural was different.

The supernatural was terrifying. You can fight serial killers, but how do you fight metaphysical beings that intend to do harm to you? Things you couldn’t see, smell, hear, or feel unless they wanted you to. That’s why he kept his water gun of holy water, why he only did one demon episode per season. If he was going to investigate these things like an adult, he’d be prepared like an adult. 

Perhaps that was why he envied Shane so much.

“That’s when I knew this man, truly, does not feel fear.”

Shane’s fervent effort to disprove ghosts to Ryan was so infuriating sometimes. And by sometimes, he meant every goddamn episode and waking moment of his existence. Any evidence that had Ryan lighting up like a Christmas tree was only smothered the second he turned to Shane only to see him shaking his head with a look of indifference. Rather than get angry or disappointed, it made Ryan determined. That’s what made this team work. That’s what made them work. Because Ryan could never truly be angry at Shane.

Shane was the model of confidence Ryan strived for on the daily. The first time Shane had said , “Hey there demons, it’s me, ya boy”, Ryan nearly wanted to bless him with the holy gun. Never talk to demons or encourage conversation, that was rule one that always ended up broken. Ryan would’ve never broken the rule if it hadn’t been for Shane. Shane strode into houses, he didn’t walk. Shane called out, coaxed, and insulted spirits. Shane claimed a fucking goat bridge for himself and was completely unafraid doing so. And Ryan found that it rubbed off on him. Shakily, he would tell demons to go fuck themselves. More and more, he would shut himself in a room with no lights. Ryan used spirit boxes, motion detectors, thermal detectors, a whole damn ouija board. 

Ryan did it because Shane made him feel safe.

Shane was making him feel safe now. Two hands relaxed on the wheel, tapping along to the radio that kept losing signal, Shane had his eyes on the road that was slowly coming out of the fog. The moment they hit it, Ryan would’ve clenched the wheel a little tighter, sat up straighter, turned the radio down. Shane merely twitched a finger to flick on his headlights. He was so calm, so confident. 

Maybe that’s why Ryan started to fall in love with him.

Being a bisexual man and working at Buzzfeed couldn’t have been a greater match in heaven. His sexuality around his coworkers was another thing he didn’t have to be worried about being scared of. Shane wasn’t love at first sight. A tall fellow intern, and boy did he love tall, but more of a beanpole with a weird eye to nose ratio. His mother had been right when she said to not judge a book by its cover. Shane was possibly the funniest person he had ever met and it was a shame he didn’t get to know him well until Unsolved. Tall and funny.

Throughout the show, they’ve been forced to be in close quarters with each other. Sitting next to each other, hunching down in narrow tunnels, keeping close in haunted houses, sleeping next to one another. It wasn’t until Ryan rolled over on the Queen Mary to suddenly be a nose away from Shane’s back that he realized Shane smelled good. Coincidentally, after that, Ryan noticed Shane smelled good all the time. Tall, funny, and smelled good.

One day, Shane casually added into a conversation about queer theory that he was pansexual.

Tall, funny, smelled good, and was available. 

All of that added with the lack of fear Ryan felt around him started to raise some flags for Ryan. He started purposely looking over his shoulder to see if Ryan was coming back from his lunch break yet. He started playing along with his jokes and making up some of his own. He started smiling when he got a text, retweet, Facebook message, any contact out of office. The realization hit him very suddenly at 8 PM on a Tuesday night. He liked the beanpole.

Ryan did his best to be subtle, but he was sure he was obvious as all heck. He may not have been pasty like Shane, but he was certain Shane could see his blush when he laughed at his jokes. Ryan was afraid again. He was afraid of messing up his perfectly working schedule, of tanking Unsolved, of losing a best friend. Shane surprised him by asking him if he wanted to get some milkshakes after wrapping up filming. He found himself at a Sonic enjoying a late night shake and trying not to choke on the dairy while laughing. Ryan couldn’t remember feeling so great and Shane made him feel that way. Getting late night fast food evolved into getting lunch, which eventually became getting drinks. Drinks accidentally became a drunken kiss, which Shane took exceptionally well amid all of Ryan’s blubbered apologies.

Shane asked him on a date the next day. 

Ryan had to say no. Not because he didn’t want to, god knows he wanted to, but his schedule was filled with so many deadlines that week that he didn’t have time. Shane, again, took it exceptionally well. A rain check then. They told no one of their mutual attraction for each other. Shane started buying Ryan coffee’s and Vice versa. Small favors, tiny gifts, funny memes printed out and taped on laptops. The rain check kept getting extended over and over and each time Ryan would beg Shane for forgiveness and promise him that he did actually like him and did want to go on a date, but the company…

Shane finally shook his head, shushed him, and kissed him. They were Even Steven now. Since Shane made his move, it was Ryan’s turn, which meant it was up to him to pick the date and place. Essentially, Shane had given Ryan the freedom to go out whenever was available to him and that small gesture was sweeter than any coffee he had gotten that week. Strangely, Shane liked his black. 

They still hadn’t gone. The Knotts Berry Farm was a very close contender, but it was a Buzzfeed video and they both didn’t count that. So here they were, driving to go find themselves a mothman. Ryan vaguely wondered if he’d see burning red eyes in the passing forest. He couldn’t quite imagine it, two pure red dots that nearly glowed. The closest he’d gotten to seeing that wasn’t so much red as it was a mixture of warm colors. He could only describe those eyes as pure hellfire. If the eyes were the window to the soul, then Ryan may have been the first human to see hell and live.

“I don’t know many demons.”  
“That’s true, I only know one.”

It elicited the proper reaction from Curly, small laughter and joking. The smile on Ryan’s face lingered the same way it would on anyone who knew something else that no one did. An inside joke, some privy information, a secret. 

Shane’s secret came out in a calm voice, that same damn calmness he always had that evaded Ryan in that moment. Ryan only had three questions. Are you joking? Where’s my holy water? What do you mean you’re a demon? Shane answered all three and Ryan wasn’t sure if he was glad or angry that he was being so cooperative. He felt lied, cheated, betrayed. It all made fucking sense now. He was pansexual because of course a demon wouldn’t have a preference. He liked his coffee black because obviously. He was so damn calm and fearless because he was essentially dead. He couldn’t be killed like a human and what demon feared a haunted house? 

Ryan called out sick for a week. There was no way he was sitting next to a demon at work and pretend like he wasn’t a demon. There was no one he could talk to or call. He couldn’t call Buzzfeed and ask them to fire Shane Madej, the actual demon working for them. He couldn’t call the police because he’d seen the police reports of multiple people who’d filed a complaint about some demon haunting. On Friday, he got an innocent enough text asking if he’d cooled down enough to talk. Ryan dialed his number so fast and blacked out for a solid five minutes. He didn’t remember what he said, but knew he was shaking and panting and burning hot with a rage powered by fear. 

“Y’know, I’ve never heard you or seen you angry before. You swear so much when you are, are you sure you’re not from Chicago?” Was the reply that wafted into his ear. Ryan broke down crying, burying his tears into his sleeve and sobbing over the phone to his demon friend and….and what? What were they now? Shane asked to come over. Wracked with confusing emotions and starved for any sort of comfort because this was a fear he couldn’t take care of like an adult, Ryan said yes.

Shane knew how to cuddle. There was honestly so much of him to cuddle, he was 9 feet tall for Christ’s sake. Shane held him tight in his arms the way Ryan had wanted him to for months now and explained his existence to him patiently. Ryan grilled him with hard questions, soft questions, dumb questions to break the mood. Shane showed him his eyes, those fiery eyes that still scared him in his hold. When Shane kissed him, Ryan felt engulfed in flame that spread to the tips of his fingers and bloomed in his stomach and cheeks. Ryan Bergara made out with a demon on a Friday night.

He told no one. How could he then, and how could he now? Ryan changed nothing in his perspective except this: All demons are bad, except Shane Madej.

Point Pleasant was their first date, Ryan decided. They toured a lovely town, ate pizza together, and hunted a cryptid at night before being spooked by something in the dark. It was quintessentially them, Buzzfeed video or not. He didn’t know how dangerous coyotes were, but he definitely wasn’t staying to find out. Once Shane and him were back in the car, Shane didn’t drive them to the hotel. He found the latest open diner that sold milkshakes and sat the both of them down at a booth. Ryan didn’t fight the goofy grin that stayed on his face all night as he tangled his hand with Shane’s. It was a beautiful night in West Virginia.


End file.
